by Tortoise » Wed 28 Jan, 2015 10:28 am
I agree - lots of great advice here.
I've done several 14 - 21 day walks, and lots of 6 - 7 days. The most I've carried is 9 days' food/fuel. Now that I've got my pack weight at least somewhat lower, I could probably do more.
Part of that is changing from 'cooking' to 'rehydrating', which uses so much less fuel.
+1 more for the rest day. After our first 14 day walk, we always factored in at least one 'rest' day for each 7 days ish. That gave us leeway for filthy weather, injuries, lost time finding the route/track, plenty of unforeseen circumstances etc, and meant we didn't put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. In addition, if we had excellent walking conditions, we sometimes did an extra half to one day's walk, so we had a bit more time up our sleeves later on. We sometimes planned the rest day around a food drop, so we didn't have to carry the WHOLE next week's food. Most times, it was planned for a place where there were interesting side trips, for those who wanted to do more.
Re number of kms: +1 to above. 25kms on good track without too much up and down can be vastly easier than e.g. 6 kms elsewhere.
Re food: In the olden days, and before the dehydrator, getting enough light weight protein on the long walks was a challenge. Plenty of supermarket/health food shop options now, from protein powders to besan (chick pea flour), soy grits etc. A very simple meal is cuppa soups with besan flour stirred in for thickness/nutrition.
If you're somewhere where water is not a problem, I'd take extra protein powder and less scroggin - that's the heaviest part of my food.
I used to buy into the 1kg/person/day thing. I know that being smaller, I don't need as much food as some, but i'm comfortably now carrying 500-600gm/day. I don't need all the spreads I used to carry, or the desserts. I ration my scroggin on the easy days so I have extra for the more demanding days etc etc. I carry the lightest meals I can - hence no longer have couscous and other heavier carbs. Rice vermicelli (white or wholemeal), given a burst in the blender to reduce bulk, is much lighter than raw rice, and saves the cooking/dehydrating/rehydrating I used to do with rice.
Re physical prep: +1 for the walking. If you haven't done a long walk before, I'd advise doing at least one strenuous daywalk with a full pack, with your actual gear and e.g. kg packets of rice etc. That way your pack should carry in a similar way to the real thing, without having to have all your food organised. That should give you an idea of how much more physical prep you might need.
I have friends who tried to prepare for a longer walk, but never carried as much as they would need to on day 1, and never as long/hard as the first day. Without outside help, they may well have had to abort the walk.
Re gear: So much depends on where you're walking, time of year and forecasts. Do you have a particular walk in mind?